Nuns sentenced

DENVER – A federal judge decided Friday that three Catholic nuns should spend no more than 31⁄2 years in prison for damaging a Weld County missile silo last year, and repay $3,000 in damages.

Though U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn called the women’s actions irresponsible, he sentenced the women to less than what guidelines recommended.

Blackburn sentenced Jackie Hudson, 68, to 21⁄2 years in a federal prison, Carol Gilbert, 55, to two years and nine months and Ardeth Platte, 66, to three years and five months. Their sentences varied based on previous convictions, all related to similar protests dating back to the 1980s.

All received three years of supervised probation after their release.

A pre-sentence report recommended different sentences for each woman, ranging from 61⁄2 to 91⁄2 years.

“This is not a win-win politically correct situation where everybody will leave here with a warm fuzzy feeling,” Blackburn said.

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Early Oct. 6 the trio – members of the Dominican order – cut through two chain-link fences into a missile silo off Colo. 14, about 8 miles west of New Raymer. Inside, they hammered at the silo’s concrete lid and tracks and painted crosses with their own blood.

The women said they wanted to bring attention to the United States’ nuclear weapons and feared the missiles would be used on Iraq.

A federal jury convicted them in April of one count of obstructing national defense and one count of causing more than $1,000 in damage to federal property.

Platte and Gilbert are members of Baltimore-based Jonah House, a group that advocates disarmament. Hudson is from Washington where she is a member of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action.

The sisters sat in court silent Friday, opting not to address Blackburn. They were dressed from head to toe in black to support the Women in Black movement. Starting in 1988, Israeli women wear black and stood silent on street corners to protest the occupation of Gaza.

But they spoke to more than 300 supporters, who gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Denver before the hearing. Many carried signs with messages such as “No Nukes” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Colorado, 49. Iraq, 0.”

“Whatever sentence I receive today will be joyfully accepted as an offering for peace. With God’s help, it will not injure my spirits,” Platte said.

Many of the supporters there Friday plan to travel to Weld County today as part of a demonstration at the 49 missile silos in northeastern Colorado.

“We have read in the press and in our pre-sentence report that the lengthy sentence is for deterrence, both for ourselves and for others,” Gilbert told the crowd. “But what the government fails to recognize is that long prison sentences will only energize the movement.”

Defense attorneys argued for leniency and pointed to a similar case. In 1999, Daniel Sicken and Oliver Sachio Coe received 21⁄2 years and 3 years and 5 months for a protest at a Weld missile site.

Sicken and Coe clipped gate wires and walked into a missile silo site in northeastern Weld in 1998. They painted a mural on the silo’s cap and took a sledgehammer to the rails and the lid. Their action caused $21,000 in damage, but the government says the nuns caused only $3,000.

Though Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Brown called the nuns “good and decent people,” he outlined their previous convictions, for crimes such as trespassing and unlawful entry on military property.

“We’re not asking them to be deterred from exercising their right to free speech. We’re asking them to be deterred from committing crimes,” he said.

Blackburn ruled the nuns would begin serving their sentences Aug. 25, but they opted to start Friday. They will receive credit for time served at the Clear Creek County Jail from October to April.

“I don’t fear going to prison. I don’t fear loss of freedom to move about. I don’t even fear death,” Gilbert said. “The fear that fills me is not having lived hard enough, deep enough and sweet enough with whatever gifts God has given me.”